Garan's tale
by Grungey1
Summary: Ten years after the end of the Clone Wars, one jedi survivor attempts to destroy a new sith threat....and it isn't associated with the Empire.
1. Chapter 1

**He stood in the darkness of his cold damp cell waiting. Waiting for what he knew was about to come. For what he knew was going to be inevitable since he was first locked up in this force forsaken place. **

**He heard the other inmates outside, in the long row of cells. Hundreds of criminal men from a dozen races haggling the guards as they came to take Garan Nokk to meet destiny. It had been five years since he had been locked up here. Was this the day then? The day that it would all end? Garan hoped so. In his mind he ran through all the endless things he had done. The things he had seen and the things he had done since the order had fallen. **

**Cold water dripped from the ceiling onto his head. He couldn't even feel it on his head. Since his incarceration five years ago he hadn't been able to get a decent haircut or even a shave. It was hard to imagine he was only twenty-four standard years old. His hair was long and matted, his beard nigh unsightly. He leaned his head back to the cool water could drip his face. He found some solace in it. He heard the electronic lock on his cell unlatch, and two guards walked in.**

**The guards were a human and a rodian. The same two that took him to the yard every day. He had known them both for five years and still he didn't know there names. It just seemed wrong to him. He didn't know why, but it seemed that he had never learned who they were. Old habit probably. **

**He walked with both guards down that long corridor. The inmates made the usual threats. They yelled and snarled. They told him how he was never going to wake up this time. He heard each one individually. In his mind Garan didn't deserve to not hear and not listen. This was part of his punishment. **

**He came to the large blast doors that the warden had added to the prison a long time ago. The guards stopped him in front of the large heavy doors. Garan didn't look either way. His eyes remained focused on the doors. The rodian guard typed the code into the door's control panel. The two large doors slowly, with a loud mechanical whirring, began to open.**

**As light filled the corridor from the gap in the door, and temporarily blinded Garan. His eyes adjusted quickly and he stepped out of the corridor and into the outdoor arena filled with sand, and boulders. As he came out the arena erupted in applause. **

"**Crowd favorite Garan "The Rock" Nokk folks," The announcer said. **

**The arena was built several years ago by the current warden when he took over. He was as corrupt as they came. He built it to give his pals; crime lords, corrupt politicians, smugglers, and the sort, even good behaved convicts, the privilege of watching hardened criminals fight to the death. **

**Garan had fought sixty-three times now and always come out on top. He was put in here for life. When the warden told him about the arena and the fights, when he first came to the prison he hoped that the other fighters would be able to deliver justice and kill him. He deserved death, but then again so did the other men that were in here.**

**The warden didn't put any one who wasn't on death row or in the prison for life in the arena. If they died, that meant paper work. Paper work could lead to an investigation. Investigation could lead to him having his prison raided. Rapists and murders. Those were the only ones that went in. **

**Gabriel eyed his opponents who were all standing in equal intervals around the arena's perimeter. None of them had weapons yet. The weapons were situated in the arena in certain places. More then enough for every one. Blasters, vibro blades, vibro-axes, knives, force-pikes, even a lightsaber the warden had bought on the black market was rumored to be hidden in the arena somewhere. No one had ever seen it though. Most thought it was a myth.**

**There were seven other convicts in the arena. A nikto stood to the left of Garan, past him was another human. After the second human there was a porcine faced gamorerean. Then there was a weequay. Garan had seen him around the prison. His name was Ack-Klar, a serial killer from Ord Mantell. Next to Garan he had the most wins in the arena and had made several threats to end Garan's career. Another nikto was to the left of Ack-Klar. Then a rodian followed by an ithorian which made Garan nervous since the ithorians were generally a peaceful race. Of course there was always an accepting. Lastly, and to the immediate right of Garan was a one eyed trandoshan. **

**Garan sighed, knowing that he would probably kill all seven of these people/ They all more than likely deserved it but that didn't mean he liked it. Ack-Klar would be the hardest. He might even be able to kill Garan. But he was cocky, over confident, and that could lead to sloppiness. **

"**FIGHT!" The announcer yelled. Garan quickly jumped past the trandoshan, who had lunged at him, attempting to kill Garan with his claws and teeth. He hit the ground and rolled behind a boulder where the guards usually paced one of the weapons in a small whole in the ground. Garan was rewarded with a blaster. He reached into the hole and felt the handle. He wrapped his hands around it and pulled it out. All the blasters that were placed in the arena had only one to five shots in them. This made it harder for the person holding the blaster to take out all of the competition without a show, and squashed any chance of the prisoner using the weapon to escape.**

**Garan felt the tingle in the back of his neck. The sense of danger washed over him and told him exactly where the trandoshan was attacking from. Garan turned and without even aiming fired two shots. The first shot took the trandoshan in the foot as he kicked off the ground, the second hit him in the throat, throwing him backwards. The trandoshan was dead when he hit the ground.**

**Garan saw one of the nikto and the other human engaged in a vibro-blade duel nearby. He would let them fight it out. In the meantime, he caught site of the ithorian hiding behind a nearby boulder. Garan took aim and fired. The ithorian must have heard him, or been very luck. He ducked his head and the laser hit the rock. The ithorian made eye contact with Garan for barely a second before disappearing into the maze of boulders that made up the arena. The blaster was empty now so he tossed it aside. **

**He heard the Gamorrean's heavy breathing as he ran at him from the side. He rolled to the left as the Gamorrean swung it's large axe at him. The axe was heavy though and threw the Gamorrean off balance, which gave Garan enough time to use the small knife he had found buried in the sand to slash the Gamorrean's throat. The Gamorrean squealed and fell to the ground clutching at his neck. Garan wanted to give the creature a quick death, but he hadn't the time. **

**Garan took a minute to look around. The nikto had beaten the human and was now chasing after ithorian it seemed. The rodian was searching for a weapon, The other nikto was dead, pinned to the stone wall of the arena by a spear. Ack-Klar was nowhere to be seen, which made Garan slightly nervous. **

**Garan went after the rodian. He caught up with him, just as the insect-like alien found a club behind one of the boulders. The rodian swung at Garan, who ducked beneath it. The rodian swung again, but Garan punched the rodian hard in the wrist, breaking the bones. The rodian hissed and stumbled back as he dropped the club. Garan thrust the knife fast into the rodian's chest. The rodian cried out and fell to the ground. Garan picked up the club and brought a crushing blow down on the poor rodian's face, killing him. **

**The nikto caught up with the ithorian, and attacked with a vibro-blade. The ithorian blocked the blow by connecting his forearm with the nikto's wrist. The nikto twirled the blade and slashed at the ithorian who dodged the blow by ducking under the nikto's elbow. He came up behind the ithorian now and grabbed his head, lifted and twisted sharply, snapping the spine in the convicted nikto's neck. The nikto slumped down dead.**

**The ithorian started looking around for the other prisoner contestants when Ack-Klar stabbed him through the back with a vibroblade. Garan looked on as the Ithorian slumped to the ground dead. Ack-Klar smiled and licked blood from the blade as he pulled it out. He then spotted Garan and started walking across the arena towards him.**

**To give these people a show was to encourage this kind of gladiatorial fighting. Ack-Klar didn't care, Garan did. They wanted a drawn out fight between the two remaining contestants. **

**Garan looked down at his knife, barely longer then his forearm from the handle to tip. He looked back at Ack-Klar and decided to charge the weequay serial killer. He closed the distance quickly. Ack-Klar brought his sword up to strike at Garan. Garan leapt from a boulder and passed over Ack-Klar. As he passed over, he thrust his knife downward into the wee quay's shoulder. The blade traveled downward severing nerves and tendons before the tip exited the armpit. **

**Ack-Klar yelled in rage more then pain. His arm hung at his side, useless. He couldn't even use his hand. He pried the vibro-blade from his own grip and put it in his other hand. He swung again at Garan who ducked under the swing and caught the other criminal's wrist in his hands and snapped it. Ack-Klar screamed again and Garan took the vibro-blade and sliced cleanly through his opponents neck. Ack-Klar froze for a few seconds before his head fell off and his body fell to the ground. **

**There was applause from the crowd. Many would enjoy the sound. Garan did not. The guards were on him in seconds. They took the vibro-blade from him and cuffed him. He took one last look at the seven bodies in the arena before he was hit in the head and darkness took him.**


	2. Chapter 2

Alone in his cell again, Garan sat alone on the cold duracrete floor. He had his legs crossed and his eyes closed as he concentrated. He looked within himself and felt the force flow through him. He had been a Jedi once. Well maybe not a Jedi, but a padawan. His master had taught him many meditation techniques before the Great Jedi Purge ten years ago.

He had escaped death at the hands of the clone army, most Jedi were not so lucky. Many of his friends and masters had died. He knew only of his master who still lived, though he knew not where.

After escaping Couruscant, Master Voolvif Monn had taken Garan to an orphanage on the planet of Raaltir, told Garan that it would be easier for them to escape the Empire if they were split up. Garan left the orphanage less then one standard year after arriving, and took a job as a loader on a large bulk freighter.

Two years after leaving the orphanage, Garan jumped ship and took up with a band of smugglers, running illegal goods to the highest bidders. Garan remained with the smugglers for the next few years until he was nineteen and an Imperial patrol captured the smugglers' ship in the Corellia system. The boarding party soon discovered that the ship was carrying weapons for a rebel cell that was striking out against the Empire

When faced with treason charges, which held a penalty of death, the captain of the ship, a zabrak named Korton Dur, fired on the Imperial boarding party. The Imperials killed the crew, except for Garan who stood trial for the others and was soon sentenced to death. He was set to the maximum security prison on the asteroid Oovo IV in the Oovo system. And for five years now he has remained waiting for his death to come.

Through the force he could feel each life on the asteroid. He could reach out and touch the ships in the hangar. If he had wanted to escape, he could have done so years ago. But he refused to. In his travels with captain Dur, he had done a few things that he could never be forgiven for. Taken the lives of people who had done nothing wrong. As far as he was concerned he deserved to rot in this cell until he died of disease or in the arena.

"So you took out Ack-Klar?" the old sullustan asked as Garan sat next to him in the chow hall. "Can't say as I'm surprised. You've got luck on your side."

Garan nodded and started eating the near-liquid, dinner that the prison's food processors and prepared for the convicts. "You don't miss a thing do you Krin?"

The old sullustan, smiled and started feeling around for his spoon. Krin had gone blind long before Garan had come here. He had taken care of Garan and taught him how to survive in the prison as soon as the young human had arrived. In return Garan protected his only friend from the more violent inmates. He grabbed the spoon and handed it to Krin.

"So how does it feel?" Krin asked.

"How does what feel?"

"Being the warden's favorite fighter."

"I wasn't aware I was," Garan replied. He eyed a group of trandoshans that had glanced over at Krin and him for a few seconds.

"I heard he's bet on you for the last five matches. Even against Ack-Klar." Krin slurped a spoonful of the grey food paste. "Won sixty thousand from some imp senator."

"I'll have to congratulate him next time I see him," the trandoshans were definitely looking at them now. Garan slid his spoon up his sleeve.

"Trouble?" Krin asked.

"Possibly," Garan replied. "Keep talking. Don't let them know we're on to them."

"Trandoshans by the sound of it." Krin said. "Sounds like that tradesman in the arena yesterday was there boss."

"Great."

The trandoshans, four of them, got up from there table and walked over to the table Garan and Krin sat at. Several other inmates got up and left as the reptilian bipeds approached. Two of them sat down on either side of Garan and Krin. The other two sat across from them.

Garan pushed his tray forward to the largest of the four who was most likely there leader. "I'm not hungry anyways," he said.

"We didn't come here for food," the large one said.

"I don't get packages," Garan said.

"We don't want anything from you."

"Then what's the problem?" he asked.

"You kill Krioosk," The large trandoshan said. "This make Grakoom leader."

"And who is Grakoom?" Garan asked.

"Me Grakoom," the trandoshan hissed. "Me thank you for making me leader."

"Your welcome then," Garan asked. "Now please leave."

"No leave yet," Grakoom said. "With Krioosk gone, warden probably put me in arena. Me go in arena, maybe you kill me. No like the sound of this."

"Any way we can fix the problem before it is presented to us?"

"We fix now. Kill you and blindy. Sullustans delicious." The trandoshan next to Krin reach out to grab the short statured sullustan.

Garan grabbed the tradesman's wrist and twisted breaking bones. The trandoshan hissed and recoiled. Garan retrieved the spoon from his sleeve and with a mighty back handed swiped, jammed it into the eyes socket of the trandoshan sitting next to him who had attempted to grab his neck.

The two trandoshans lunged across the table and tackled Garan to the floor. Krin stepped away and gave the creature nursing the broken wrist a strong smack to the face with his food tray. The trandoshan was knocked unconscious.

Grakoom's claws dug into Garan's arm, drawing dark red blood. Garan gritted his teeth and threw his hands up to block Grakoom's jaws as he tried to bite the human's throat. As he held off Grakoom, the slightly smaller trandoshan bit hard into Garan's leg, drawing a painful yell from Garan.

Garan used his free leg to give the other trandoshan a swift kick to the face. That was when the lights went out.

A few seconds earlier….

Deriah Sin stood on the bridge of the jet black star destroyer as it maneuvered through the Oovo system. The HUD to his left, scrolled through the diagnostics of the prison on the large asteroid, Oovo IV.

"Your sure this is where the signal came from?" he asked. The filter in his helmet made his voice much deeper and more menacing.

"Yes sir," the captain said. "Just yesterday."

"Very good,' Sin replied. "And there communications have been jammed?"

"Affirmative sir. Shall I launch the fighters?"

"Yes," Deriah Sin said. "Wipe out there shields and defense turrets. After that we should have no problem landing the troops. I will lead the assault myself."

Arcs of blue light shot through the air, piercing the darkness. A few seconds later the lights came back on. Grakoom lay unconscious on the floor, and the other trandoshan was running to get away from the stun bolts flying through the air from the prison guards.

"Krin, what's going on?" Garan asked.

"Assault," Krin said. "probably someone trying to bust one of there friends out. Happens once every few years."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Alright lets get out of here," Garan guided his blind friend over to a table in the far corner of the room and hid behind it. Beings lf a hundred different species ran around the room trying to avoid the blue bolts of energy.

Some were trying to get to the guards, using the power outage as motivation to over power the guards and escape. A large wookie got hit by several stun bolts at once and fell to the ground next to Garan and Krin's hiding place, his fur smoking.

Garan sensed no life in the poor creature. He had seen prison riots before but, never one aided by an assault. Suddenly the sound of full blaster fire filled the chamber.

Garan peeked over the table to see what was happening. He couldn't see who was firing, but they came from the main entrance to the chow hall. The guards had been caught off guard. Most falling victim to blaster bolts from behind. Several turned to fire at there assailants, only to be cut down as well. The prisoners were not spared.

As the blaster fire died down, the few surviving prisoners hid under tables, and the attacking soldiers moved into the room. They wore silver armor over black jump suits and silver helmets with oval shaped voice boxes and a wide black visor.

The silver warriors moved quickly through the chow hall, securing the surviving inmates and searching the dead.

"There looking for someone," Krin said. "We should leave."

The old sullustan felt around the wall next to the table they hid behind. He finally found the small grove he was looking for and slid a small access plate aside.

"Where the hell did this come from?" Garan asked.

"When you've been here as long as I have, you learn where all possible escape routes are, now hurry up boy."

Garan followed Krin through the hole. "Get the access plate behind you," Krin said.

Garan turned to slide the access panel shut behind him. As he closed it he caught a glimpse of a tall figure in blood red armor and a black cape walking into the chow hall behind the silver clad soldiers.


End file.
